Raucous crowds can be good. For instance, when I saw Starship Troopers and The Lost World, the crowds participation made the movies better. The crowd at the midnight show of Revenge of the Sith was great too. The movie had two restarts, the lights came back on during the previews and back off again....twice! I thought the crowd was going to riot.

Another story I have is when I saw a flick at the end of it's run and the theatre was completely empty, a old couple came and sat right in front of my girlfriend and I. I was in disbelief.

Also, is there anything more uncomfortable then going to a movie with a good friend of yours for the first time and the guy/gal turns out to be a big talker? I seriously will not talk during the whole movie. I don't check my cell or watch or anything. I rarely rarely ever talk during the movie. Of course I hate it when other people but what do you do when your good buddy keeps yapping?

BTW, the American History X story. The guy did all that right after the dinner table speech Ed Norton gives about Lincoln freeing the slaves. I guess he didn't agree. :)

Saxon

Even though I live in "polite" Toronto, my ambition is to never have to go to a theatre again. I've spent years building up my home theatre and I frankly find it superior to "the movie-going experience". Too many bad experiences that have to do with the lack of supervision (i.e. personnel) and picture quality, mostly...

But the list of beefs is long: Tickets that say "9 4 5", which is supposed to mean you paid 9 $ for a showing in Hall 4 at 5 PM; self-service food bins where you do all the work and have no place to put your gloves in the winter without them falling in some conveniently placed ice water bin; the lack of affordable, healthy treats; uncomprehending acneed teenage employees who don't understand English and/or the word "toilet"; halls the size of a walk-in closet; entire basketball teams filling a row who won't get up when you want to get to the last available seat (held together with duct tape); the general absence of signage; unpopular films shown in a dungeon three floors below the residual water level, where hoboes elect to sleep; people who take up two or three seats each with their winter clothes when some patrons have to sit on the stairs; the cellphones with musical MP-3 tunes; the long, arduous wait for the feature watching Britney Spears' tits endlessly shill for Pepsi; the parents who encourage their kids to spill unwanted portions of food on the floor where it belongs; 4-year old kids running around the hall during R-rated movies ("Bram Stoker's Dracula").

I was once in a googleplex hall where the lights did not dim after the start of the feature and one of several patrons who went on an aimless expedition trying to find "the person responsible", which took all of 20 minutes. That was pretty much the low point.

The last time I was in a theatre was for a showing of "Madagascar" where a four-year old kid with the loudest voice imaginable did a hilarious running commentary on the movie experience (e.g.: "Daddy, he kicked him in the CROTCH!"), which was actually more entertaining than the movie...

:lol:

It really depends. if it's an audience that's on the same page or really into the movie, i.e. Lord of the Rings or Star Wars audience at a Midnight preview, then it's cool. If it's just the regular folks or a crowd with young stupid asses then it can be kinda crappy.

My fondest memory of an intelligent movie theatre crowd was watching Werner Herzog's Nosferatu: Phantom Der Nacht (1979) in Montreal in an "art house" when it first came out. This German film was a talking remake of the original Murnau Nosferatu (1922) of course; it was in German and had English subtitles but the audience of cinephiles was mostly French-speaking. This was before Quebec laws that made it mandatory for foreign films to be also available in a subtitled or dubbed French version. As the vast majority of French-speaking Canadians also understand the other official language (which cannot be said about the English part of the population), this was no great ordeal in itself, however. Halfway through the really scary parts, though, three English-speaking Yahoos (two males and a female) started making loud derogatory noises about the film like they were watching the kind of sleazo drive-in living dead B-film they were used to. Needless to say, that didn't go down too well with this audience of purists who were already a little pissed at having to read English subtitles for the benefit of a few minority imbeciles who didn't seem to appreciate what they were getting. After a few unheeded warnings, the trio was forcibly evicted by what seemed to me particularly burly representatives of the World Federation of French-speaking Filmlovers who were only too happy to oblige, to the general applause of the audience. Everybody present felt like something politically important had just happened...

Wow. If that were in California and English speaking brutes watching a movie subbed with Spanish did that to Spanish speaking audience members who were acting like asses, they(the brutes) would get arrested then sued.

Depends on the film.

With The Devil's Rejects last night, the crowd easily made the film a lot more enjoyable. Whenever there was humor on screen, the whole crowd busted out laughing. Whenever there was a death scene, the whole crowd busted out into cheers and applause. Easily on par with the advance previews of Serenity or the midnight showing of Revenge of the Sith.

Sometimes an active crowd can make a terrible film tolerable and sometimes it can boost your apprecation for a great film.

However, I wouldn't want an active crowd for say an indie drama. :)

Way to miss the point completely... For your comparison to work you'd have to imagine a strange science-fiction world where an audience of English-speaking Californian filmgoers are forced to watch a foreign film with Spanish subtitles because the Spanish minority makes it politically and economically impossible to watch films in your language and then three of these pesky Spanish-speaking overlords walk into your theatre to make fun of the film. Now you have a comparison.

Just the thought of that makes me shudder.

Figured I'd share a few of my fav / least fav movie crowd experiences:

Best Experience

By far, this has to be the annual Showgirls showing in Chelsea. A packed theater fill of people who know the movie (and all it's terrible, terrible acting and dialog) by heart. The ushers pass out clappers and lights beforehand and everyone knows just when to use them. Hilarious stuff. Anyone who has been to this even knows what I'm talking about.

Worst experiences:

3) Bourne Supremecy: Just as a car chase starts some yahoo yells "GO JASON BOURNE!!"

2) Just saw the newest Star Wars movie at the Loews near Lincoln Center (Manhattan). Idiots cheering through the whole movie I can take I guess. but half way through the movie I see I light shining on the seat in front of me... What is it? The cell phone of the idiot guy behind me. "You waht's up? Nothing, just watching Yoda kick some ass..." Damn fool. At least he turned it off soon enough.

1) Went to see Crash at the same theater. I figured to avoid an obnoxious crowd I'd wait until it had been out a few weeks. No luck. Before the movie started I got up to get my girlfriend an Icee. I said excuse me to the couple in my aisle before I tried to get by them - instead of doing the half stand, they sunk lower in their seats! I said an audible "OK..." and just walked right by. I accidentally stepped on the ladies toe and she yelped. Whatever - she should have moved. On my way back in, instead of going through my aisle past those people to get to my seat I figured I go through the enarly empty isle behind my seat and then step over the chair. Well, the lady at the head of that aisle was apparently reserving the whole row for her friends. When I asked her to get by she said they were all taken. I quickly tried to explain I was trying to get to my seat on the other side and she just yelled "you better not take my seat" in a thick Puertorican accent as I walked by. Idiot - I just said I wasn't going to take your damn seats.

SPOLILERS FOR THE MOVIE CRASH BELOW

During the part in the movie when Don Cheadle is joking with his girlfriend about how all those different races learned to park cars on their lawns the same lady yells out "That's not funny, he's talking about Puerto Ricans!". Sigh.

The scene after the store owener "shoots" the little girl and nothing happens they show him in the store, slumped in his chair. Again, the same lady whispers loudly to her friend "he shot himself!". Damn moron. If you can't tell by then the guns had blanks in it you are just plain stupid.

END SPOLIERS

Towards the end of the film this middle age white guy up front stands up, turns around and yells "shut the fu*k up!" to the guy sitting behind him (who apparently was one of many people talking through the whole movie. Freakin hilarious!
After the movie the two started yelling at each other and actually got a bit violet. The guy who got yelled at stormed out shouting racial slurs ("stupid cracker! learn something from the movie!") Of course, that's like the pot calling the kettle black right there. Once they were both out of the theater they were still jawing at each other. The white says "what are you gonna go, kick me?" So of course the guy starts kicking him. The popcorn guy called security who got there pretty quickly and broke them up as my girlfriend and I walked away.

What a bunch of morons at the movies these days...

I'd enjoy going to the movies a lot more if it weren't for the goddamed audiences. :grunt:

Actually though, I've been to the movies about three times in the last month. First time in fact since RotK came out and it was actually a pretty good experience. Clean comfy seats, polite audiences, good presentation, etc. Only real problem was the annoying The Twenty ads for crappy tv shows (Who Wants To Be a Hilton? Jesus H. Christ!), and the quality of the trailers. Good help me if I ever find myself going to one of these so called 'action' flicks where all the stunts and pyrotechnics are computer generated. Hell, if I want that sort of thing I'll stay home and play a game on my PC. Goddamed The Island, Stealth or whatever they're calling the latest crapfest.

Fortunately the last time I remembered to bring a book. :)

two really bad experiences that i can remember which still make me think twice about going to some movies:

Revenge of the sith: Got some nice sweets dead center. Unfortunately, some parents decided that their 3yr old kids needed to see Star wars at the midnight showing. Needless to say the kids had to cry/ leave the theatre about 2-3 times throughout the movie. Nice parenting! Too make things worse, the local high school cheerleading squad decided to sit directly behind us. The moment i knew that this wasn't going to be good was when Anakin showed up in that robe half naked and the girls giggled, "oh my god he is soooo hot!"

The second was Harry Potter Chamber of secrets: I decided to see this on the second weekend, hoping to miss the rush. No go there, and to make matters worse we had two middle aged women sitting in front of us who were clearly on their 2nd or 3rd showing. So throughout the movie we would clearly hear, "Here it comes!" "Ooh Ooh, this parts good." I clearly remember wanting to beat them over the head with my bag of popcorn.

Way to whatever....

[QUOTE=PopcornTreeCt First of all, the theatre was packed with assholes. [/QUOTE]

:lol:

I went to see Batman Begins Friday afternoon. The viewing experience was fine except for one minor glitch. When Joe Chill pulls out his gun and points it at the Waynes, the movie stopped and the lights came back on. The movie eventually started up again about 5 minutes later. At least it didn't happen during anything important. ;)

I joked with my buddy that maybe it was a serialized version of the film and we were supposed to return next week to see what happens.

some movies like star wars and some comedys are fun when the theater is packed but theres lots of morons out there but overall i have a couple nice theaters and one thats a dump. but some movies you need to go see it in a theater

Saw Batman Begins on Friday and it couldn't have gone any better.

This is a BAD thing? You lucky bastard, you. :)

A local highschool cheerleading squad was actually at a Star Wars movie? I find that hard to believe. ;)

With all of the ads and for the most part crappy teasers they throw at you, I really don't see any reason to see movies in the theater, even if they are epics that can be remedied if you have a decent sized widescreen TV nowadays.

Not if he didn't 'get any'.

I have'nt seen the latest Star Wars yet(and could care less),nor have I seen Batman Begins yet.

My theater experiances have actually gone over pretty well. In fact I'd have to go back a couple years for the last annoying theatrical experiance(then further back to the Star Wars SE releases).

The last badly projected film I saw was House of 1000 Corpses where a good amount of the bottom of the screen was chopped off. The midnight showing was packed and it appeared the punks would start a fight(since some macho dickheads in the front row started shouting threats at other guys in the back row). Thankfully durring the film itself,the audience was mostly quiet and just wowed by the twistd nature of the film. There was a huge round of applause when the end credits hit,which made it a good experiance(besides the framing).

Note-I saw that at the Mall of American. It is a shitty shitty theater with terribly high prices and all around badly projected films. Avoid at all costs. I am never going back there again!!

I can't wait to see Rejects though,but will see this one at my so far fool proof multiplex where nothing has gone wrong so far,and the crowds have not been annoying(at my showings).

Star Wars SE was a terrible experiance since I could'nt see the screen. Since some fat lady with a huge afro head of hair was blocking my view. I tried looking over each shoulder,and she kept slouching from side to side blocking me. If that wasn't bad enough. We were packed into our seats by a swarm of sweaty unclean fans who camped out..and sliding passed them to get to the aisle for bathroom breaks was nearly impossible.

I didn't notice the really drastic terrible changes too the film until I saw this version on video and have hated the SE's ever since:)

Ep1 was a terrible film in every way possible and thus I have decided to never see Star Wars films in theaters again(we saw the SE's of Empire/Jedi durring matinees when no one was there). The theater was packed with the same scary fans as well,but they were pretty quiet. The film sucked royally and was still a painful experiance to sit through:)


I did laugh when seeing Kill Bill Vol 1,as some dumbass lady bolted from the theater once we got a look at Umas face durring the brief pre-credit sequence. She tore too the door in no time,as he little kids(under 5) stood near the aisle wondering "Huh? We just got here" and then left.


Recently I saw High Tension at midnight and about 15 people in total where there. Great audience,respectful and did react towards the violent moments in the film wonderfully.

This showing had the highest amount of commercials I ever suffered through though. It was at least 5 minutes worth(before it'd be a minute at most) and thus i could'nt keep quiet. I groaned everytime a new commercial came on as did a few others and we laughed "Oh another one,ughh.I'm not buying your product!". I did comment sometimes with "At least this commercials framed right(at 1:33:1..most are stretched)" and "See now this is a misprojected commercial(stretched)". When the previews finally came on I clapped and said "It's about time!",and the audience agreed.

Oh and durring the film I was quiet and respectful as always:)

About a month ago I went to a showing of the Jet Li movie "Unleashed" and every time they started fighting this black right behind me would very loudly just yell "wooo" (sort of like Ric Flair).This would scare the hell out of me to be real into the movie and out of no where just yell.Also,the last five minutes three rows in front of me this guys children started crying but shut up in about a minute.

Great movie but bad experience.

Complaining About Theater Experience
 

What drives you to complain to a theater manager?

I'm pretty lax about people in the theater, cell phones will ring, people will talk, candy wrappers will make noise. It may annoy me but every now and then I get caught too where I forget to turn off my cell, or a spill a box of Skittles all over the floor. I understand these problems and as long as it doesn't pop up again I won't complain.

What does get me to bitch out a manager is an improperly framed movie; I don't want any of the image off the screen. One of the theaters I frequent constantly has the movie hanging over a couple feet onto the adjoining wall. It has gotten to the point where they don't want to hear from me anymore, they know what I’m gonna complain about and pretty much just roll their eyes.

I also can't stand when they leave the lights on. I remember seeing Mulholland Dr. and it took me 3 separate trips out of the theater to get the lights dimmed.

Re: Complaining About Theater Experience
 

and yet you continue to go back

Re: Complaining About Theater Experience
 

Yes, but mostly out of convenience and nostalgia. The theater is a mile from my job, I can sneak over after work. I've been going to this theater since it opened (Dances with Wolves was the first movie I saw there) and I used to work for them.

Re: Complaining About Theater Experience
 

I'm like the OP. I don't get bothered too easily by talkers, a cell phone that rings by accident or texters. It just doesn't happen enough to annoy me. The worst offenders for me are talkers. If it gets annoying enough I'll drop a "shhh" followed by a "shut the fuck up" if they keep going.

But to complain to the manager it would have to be something I can't take care of myself. If the lighting isn't off or the picture is misframed I'll tell the manager. But it wouldn't really be complaining... more like "hey can you take care of this?"... If it ever got to the point where it was happening often I wouldn't complain, I just wouldn't go back.

Re: Complaining About Theater Experience
 

-ohbfrank-

Re: Complaining About Theater Experience
 

^ we are talking under 1% of my theater going exerience, but yes I'm sorry.

Re: Complaining About Theater Experience
 

Nobody cares about accidents. It's the folks who constantly check their phone or text throughout the whole movie that suck, which I would equate to talking throughout the movie. (I've been next to people who have taken several calls during a movie too.) When they can text or check without the light beaming then I won't care.

Re: Complaining About Theater Experience
 

I'm pretty lax until someone keeps moving or digging into the back of my chair to where I stand up and yell "what the fuck?" But the only thing I ever remember complaining to the staff about was if the theater was really hot. Nothing worse than a hot theater.

Re: Complaining About Theater Experience
 

What about a hot theater that smells like vomit?

Re: Complaining About Theater Experience
 

Funny enough, when i went to see Thor opening day, there was this helium filled balloon and ribbon that was floating right in front of the IMAX screen. The balloon actually wasn't that noticeable, but the ribbon was reflecting light and really distracting. Thankfully they stopped the previews and brought the house lights up and spent about five or ten minutes putting this long grabbling arm together which they were able to snag it with. We all cheered when they popped that sumbitch, haha...

Re: Complaining About Theater Experience
 

I've read enough of these threads to know that there are plenty of people that care about accidents. :lol:

And yeah I agree with you on this but for some reason this just doesn't happen to me when I go to the theater. I've heard phones ring but they were silenced almost right away. I've seen people whip out their phone to check a text but never seen someone just sit there and text for an extended period of time. But the talkers... they're always there. May not always get to the point where I'm annoyed by them... but they're there.

Re: Complaining About Theater Experience
 

I'm more annoyed by people chomping on popcorn and rattling candy packages than texting, but they both suck.

Re: Complaining About Theater Experience
 

Where are you watching movies man?

Re: Complaining About Theater Experience
 

Nah I've been hearing popcorn and candy at the movies ever since my first movie. Thats part of the experience. Oh wait thats me eating the popcorn...

Re: Complaining About Theater Experience
 

I think the only time I went to a manager was when I had rushed to go see a movie. It was the last showing of the day, and it was the last day that the movie (Gangs of New York) was showing. I bought my ticket online, rushed to the theater and arrived just in time. My ticket was taken like normal, and I went into the theater. Something was already playing. It looked like a preview for Shanghai Knights. I sat down for a minute or two before I realized that it IS Shanghai Knights. Ugh. I was then informed they decided to cancel the last showing since there hadn't been many tickets sold. They gave me my money back and said I could still go see Shanghai Knights. I didn't bother trying to explain just how different a movie-going experience Shanghai Knights would be from Gang of New York, but it was the only time I had ever gotten angry enough to speak to the theater manager.

Re: Complaining About Theater Experience
 

Two things annoy me when going to the movies. Actually, they only happen to me when going to Cinemark for some reason.

1.) My friends and I usually get to new releases an hour or so early to stand in line and get good seats. What happens? People walk in to a packed theater during the trailers and the Cinemark ushers come up and almost always ask us to move so these people can sit together. We generally say no and advise the usher that there are still seats in the front rows. If they get moody with us, which has happened once or twice, we'll suggest that they should have been there early to get better seats. I wouldn't expect people to move for my late ass either. Now if the entire theater is packed including the seats in the first 2-3 rows, I'd just move over. Just pisses me off when I'm asked to move when there are plenty of open seats elsewhere.

2.) Cinemark does a terrible job kicking rowdy teens out. When we went to see Due Date there were four teens next to us basically yelling at each other and fooling around for the first 10 minutes. One of them decided to throw a full popcorn and a drink on the floor we had to walk over. They got up and left within 20 mins or so. Perhaps they snuck in, perhaps they're just dumb. Who knows! Of course, no employee asked them to cut it out.

Re: Complaining About Theater Experience
 

When I handled customer complaints at my theater I was usually pretty understanding. I know how awful and inconsiderate people can be, so if someone complained about people talking or using cell phones I'd apologize or give them passes.

What blows my mind are the amount of people who complain because they didn't like the movie. Now, you may not realize this, but movie theaters don't make the movies. We just show the movies. All we can guarantee is that you will see the movie without defects. If something goes wrong technically, that's on us, and you will get passes or a refund. But if you didn't like the movie, tough titty. Send a letter to the studio.

Also, the amount of complaints I got from people who wanted to bring in outside food despite our signs saying NO OUTSIDE FOOD never got any sympathy from me. Fuck you for trying to bring in a whole pizza to eat in the theater or a family takeout dinner from Boston Market. Just hide your food like normal people and at least realize you're breaking the rules. Dicks.

Re: Complaining About Theater Experience
 

I was watching Hellboy 2 with a buddy. The back of my seat was getting kicked constantly throughout the movie. I finally got fed up, got up and yelled at the person. Turns out is was some girl who appeared to be mentally challenged. I actually felt a little bad that I yelled at her. Had I seen her before the movie, I probably wouldn't have yelled. I still get shit from my friend about that incident.